- Revenue sharing in sports is not only desired but vital. The fact is certain markets will always generate more revenue than others. Without any revenue sharing this discrepency between big markets and small markets would continue to grow exponentially until the quality and competitiveness of the league hits rock bottom (ie MLB).

- Individual people are greedy for the most part. The NFL is lucky because they came up with revenue sharing decades ago when the league had no revenue. If they tried to instate this rule now I don't think it would ever get passed, or the sharing would be much much less.

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Excellent Post CrazyCanuck.......................
When you compare the NFL to the other major sports leagues NBA, MLB, and the now suspended NHL, the NFL is the most successful. Revenue sharing and the way the NFL salary cap is structured are the things that have helped, and enables Green Bay with a population of 100,000 to compete at the same level as big markets such as New York, or owners with deep pockets Snyder/Jones for example--the league MUST HAVE revenue sharing. At the same time they have allowed free agency for the players. I would still like the NFL to institute a rookie cap for the first 3 years......similar to the NBA.....so the NFL teams can see how the rookie pans out before tying up lots of cap money, over a long contract on an unknown. especially if a rookie doesn't pan out, even if they cut that player, the team takes a huge cap hit, especially if he was a top rookie QB prospect or a #1 draft pick!. To enable a team to keep players I'd also like to see a veteran exception for the salary cap, if a player has played with the same team for 5 years..........

Your right though a lot of this collective bargaining agreement, is tied into the new TV contracts....the players want their share which is only fair.

__________________ "It's absolutely criminal, in my opinion, that Monk has yet to be enshrined (in the Pro-Football Hall of Fame)" Dan Arkush PFW

One thing to remember when comparing sports since it seems pretty universal that nobody wants a system like baseball:
Baseball and football operate in vastly different ways. Because of history and such baseball teams operate separately and distinctly. A bunch of individual entities owned and operated by seperate people who have agreed to compete together in one of two leagues. The teams are as seperate as possible. Only recently has the central government of baseball increased it's power and that was because the group owners saw how football was kicking their ass. Football on the other hand operates with much greater synergy. The league government has all the power. The teams operate together as one big entity. This has given them greater leverage in labor negotiations compared to baseball. The single most important thing to come from this synergistic operating scheme is the salary cap. I doubt the owners will ever let a day go by without a cap. Even for only one season. I do think that the players are going to end up getting a hefty increase in both the minimum and maximum salalry caps. The key here is that the owners are going to settle their differences first. If the owners agree to start including the outside revenue then the players will most certainly demand a greater cap increase since the monies shared are greater. This will in turn simply decrease the desired effect of sharing more money as the increased salaries will in effect offset the new money to the smaller market teams. It won't help them any really. Maybe a bit but not much. It will hurt teams like the Skins who rely heavily on cash on hand to pay salaries. They pay big bonuses that require a lot of liquid cash since it all goes out at once. They will then have less to spend essentially. This all adds up to major labor issues. In the end my guess based on some of the more technical stuff I have read seems to indicate that there will be little movement on the sharing outside of minor adjustments to help smaller market teams a little. The thing is that nobody in the NFL can say they aren't making money and why would they jeopardize it by creating a situation that may lead to greater labor issues?

"Large-market teams such as Washington, Dallas and Houston, of course, are obvious opponents to such a strategy. Those three teams would say that if you're going to share my revenue, you should also have to share my debt. Purchase prices, franchise fees and new stadiums are driving those teams' debts and they argue that they need their local revenues to address those debts."

I know Jerrah is looking for help in builing the Cryboys new stadium in Arlington to open in 2009. Although the Taxpayers agreed to help build the $650 milliion stadium, the opperative word is HELP. Jerrah will need some big bucks to make up the difference his pockets aren't that deep. Jerry has always found a loop hole around revenue sharing.....be it......league has Coke as the official drink of the NFL-he gets a contract with Pepsi, he got a contract with Nike, and every company in little D is the official product of the Dallas Cowboys.......

__________________ "It's absolutely criminal, in my opinion, that Monk has yet to be enshrined (in the Pro-Football Hall of Fame)" Dan Arkush PFW